365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

T-shirt #54 - They Might Be Giants
Hello again. I just returned from having breakfast with my good friend Chris Dilley, General Manager of the People's Food Co-op of Kalamazoo and all around good guy. We're pals. We do self-care together by hanging out for breakfast, seeing geeky guy movies our wives might not like, or playing games with other geeky-minded, nerd types (guys who may not self-identify as nerds or geeks, but really, who are we kidding, right?).

Getting dressed to meet Chris for breakfast at Kalamazoo's Crow's Nest, I decided to select a shirt and feature it on the blog. I mean, what else is the blog for?

I have already featured a People's Food Co-op shirt, and besides, Chris is more than his job. So, flipping through shirts in my closet, I chose this one because I am still sharing yellow/gold colored shirts which is my favorite color for spring, I figured Chris probably likes They Might Be Giants (TMBG) as much as I do, and TMBG has a great song about friends and big cities which immediately leapt to my mind (not sure why other than the friendship angle) when I thought of Chris Dilley (the song being "New York City" from the band's 1996 release Factory Showroom).

Friendship. Smart geeky people. They Might Be Giants. What else do we need today?

RANDOM DATA

I have seen TMBG twice in concert. The second time was in Grand Rapids at the Intersection before the public smoking ban passed, and I could barely breathe and did not enjoy the show as much because of the venue. The first time was at Irving Place in New York City two days before New Year's Eve for the first of three shows TMBG played in what was probably 2002 or 2003. I may update this part of the blog entry when I can find my ticket stub. I save all my ticket stubs in a notebook. Yes, I am well aware that I am quite incurably insane.

Oh Wait!! I think there's a third time from back in the early 1990s. I must consult my book. I have no shirt from that era, but I have a vague memory of driving to Ann Arbor to see them with some friends.

The band They Might Be Giants is named after one of my favorite films, They Might Be Giants, starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward. Copies are hard to come by, and I am not sure if it's available as a streaming option, but it's a great film. Well worth a viewing. It's also about friendship, among other things.

I discovered TMBG in 1988 with the release of Lincoln. I listened obsessively and soon knew all the words to every song; a practice that continued with Flood (1990) and many other releases. It's what you do if you're a TMBG fan, which I will explore in the next item.

DO NOT JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER: Back in the early 1990s, because it was after the release of Flood, I was at a fraternity party at Indiana University because my friend Tom went to law school there (see T-shirt #40), and we were dragged to this party by some girls we liked. I have always been very anti-fraternity and found myself being very judgmental of these people as stupid, beer-guzzling, superficial, shallow jocks and preps. And then something magical happened. Someone put on the album Flood. Everyone (and I do mean everyone) started singing along. They ALL knew ALL the words by heart. They were ALL articulate and precise with their diction. I had a difficult time thinking of them as shallow or superficial since we shared a love for this album by TMBG, which I considered a band for smart people in my misanthropic stupidity (for more epiphanies about misanthropy, see, again, T-shirt #40).

Friendship - not just for smart geeky people. And as the shirt illustrates, drunkenness is not just for supposedly shallow and superficial frat boys.

Check out Sense of Doubt blog

Hi. Thanks for reading. I closed out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. Currently, I am enjoying a hiatus of total non-transmission or publication for an as yet undetermined period of time. As of the posting of this note (and it's no April Fool's) on 1404.01, I have some unfinished T-shirt blog entries, which will be posted over the next two weeks. After some more blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. MEANWHILE, I am posting weekly and somewhat at random over on SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG.

Over there, you will find THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book

reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1404.01

SiJ - Daguérose

The Catalanian Tapes

ZENИTH

Original Introductory Text

Maybe it's narcissism. I have been wanting to increase my blog presence, and I wanted something that was easy to update, much like my frequent "Facebookery." Hence, 365 T-Shirts. I have a lot of T-Shirts. Some may say that I am somewhat compulsive about buying T-Shirts, owning them, wearing them. Earlier this year (as the blog would have been better started on January 1st), I wondered if I had 365 different T-Shirts. I don't know. Now, obviously, I could count them, but where is the fun in that? Better to post a picture of one per day for an entire year to test whether or not I run out of shirts before 365 days have passed. This hobby means taking and displaying a lot of pictures of me, which is not a prospect that I find thrilling. But the pride of embracing my geeky side and my obvious egotism make for a fine marriage in what I hope will be seen as a whimsical blog for occasional viewing, if not even a regular check in for many of my friends new and old. Thus, I present 365 T-shirts, launched on 1303.22 or as others call it March 22, 2013. Now watch as I fail to keep it going for even a week...